Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2014/December

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← November 2014 · December 2014 · January 2015 → · (current)

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Is 'label' the new 'context'?

As in [1] and [2]. If so, what has 'label' got that 'context' hasn't? Is it just a younger model? I can't keep track of the never-ending cycle of template changes. Kaixinguo (talk) 13:00, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

The language code goes in the first positional parameter (instead of named |lang=), which some find convenient. Also, there are some definition labels which are not strictly contexts, so the name is a bit more accurate. — Keφr 14:10, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I need to look into when I should be using 'label', then. Kaixinguo (talk) 10:33, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@Kaixinguo The edits of Embryomystic are not supported by consensus. The use of {{label}} is not standard; it currently sees a tiny minority use. See also Wiktionary:Votes/2014-08/Templates context and label and also the talk page Wiktionary talk:Votes/2014-08/Templates context and label. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:32, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I'll be honest and say that I prefer {{label}} over {{context}}, but the main reason for those edits was to add language. embryomystic (talk) 23:40, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Allow checking translations with the translation editor

I think it might be nice if the translation editor could somehow allow translations that need checking to be marked as "checked". That way people won't need to edit the entry anymore, which speeds things up. —CodeCat 19:14, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

New changes to Chinese entries

(Notifying Kc kennylau, Atitarev, Tooironic, Jamesjiao, Bumm13, Meihouwang):

Dear Chinese-language editors,

As the presence of Chinese entries grows rapidly on Wiktionary, I would like to propose some further changes to the format of Chinese entries. These changes aim to reduce the workload of Chinese-language editors (more specifically, avoid data reduplication and synchronisation hassles) and further neatify the code of Chinese entries. The changes include:

1. Introduction of "lemma forms" for Chinese entries. This follows from sporadic suggestions and discussions raised before, such as at Talk:個. Copying my post there, the arguments for the introduction of lemma forms are:

In detail, this lemma form proposal would entail:

• Centralising all information (etymology, pronunciation, definitions, "see-also" terms, compounds) at the traditional form, which is considered the lemma form of a Chinese word. If multiple traditional forms exist, the most common form is chosen as the lemma form.
• All Chinese text under the Chinese header, including example sentences, related terms, synonyms/antonyms would include both scripts. Example sentences in both scripts can be generated automatically by the template {{zh-usex}}.
• Other non-lemma forms will be converted to a soft-redirect - see User:Wyang/历史 and User:Wyang/语. The format of these redirects is negotiable but the principle is they should contain as little information as possible.

Adopting a new neater version of the Hanzi box - {{zh-forms}} (backend is Module:zh-forms). Now that many complex editing tasks could be performed automatically with the Lua language, there is no need for partial manual coding of the Hanzi box as is currently implemented. Instead of the code

{{zh-hanzi-box|[[电脑]]|[[電]][[腦]]}}

at 電腦, one can use

{{zh-forms|s=电脑}}.

Please let me know what you guys think about these changes.

Thank you!

Wyang (talk) 11:08, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

(Not an editor of Chinese) I always thought it was interesting but perhaps inconsistent that content has been removed from so-called British entries and focussed on the American spelling, the reason given being that it would be too much work to maintain both entries, whilst having a far greater number of simplified and traditional Chinese entries to maintain. Kaixinguo (talk) 11:24, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Interesting, but not true. There is no rule or practice to consolidate only in favor of American entries: it can go either way. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:13, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

The idea of centralization sounds logical. I have a couple of questions:

1. Will the centralized information on the lemma page be too crowded? Since both formats will be displayed.
2. Will the Hanzi-box still display the characters in the order of simplified-traditional? Would it make more sense to switch the order to trad-simp now that the lemma page will be the traditional?
3. The soft redirect will not categorize the simplified entries. Is that ok?
4. Instead of the soft redirect, what about a simple page similar to alternative spelling that we use for other languages?
5. Will the lemma page visibly contain both formats at the same time or can users set preferences to see only one of them? --Panda10 (talk) 14:31, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Ping didn't work for me, repeating here @Kc kennylau, Tooironic, Jamesjiao, Bumm13, Meihouwang.

Support in principle. My preference is simplified for lemmas but if the rest decides traditional, I won't object. (I will give my reasons for preferring simplified over traditional later.)

Any dictionary - print or online uses just one form for articles, providing the other form for reference. Yes, keeping the info centralised is the main issue. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

• I also support this proposal in theory. It would save myself and other Chinese editors a lot of time dealing with the synchronising work. Using the traditional form as the lemma makes sense, since mapping from trad->simp can be easily automatised, while simp->trad would require the intervention of human editors. Are we at the stage now where we can see a model of this proposed change? ---> Tooironic (talk)
  • Another argument for traditional is that it's more widely represented within the time span of the language we call "Chinese". Simplified is only about... half a century old? —CodeCat 23:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Pro-simplified arguments:

1. Much more common today. Used in (mainland) China (also Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia) as the obviously biggest user of the Chinese language (in any form). Not sure if there is statistics about it but you can guess that the explosion of Chinese in Internet is due to China proper.
2. Some will disagree but I doubt China will go back to traditional characters. Traditional characters are used only in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The status of both is less than a fully independent state. Taiwan government is working hard on preservation of traditional characters for a reason. Many Hong Kong citizens are fluent in English, so foreigners don't need to know Chinese (Cantonese or Mandarin) to get by.
3. Overseas Chinese almost completely switched to simplified. Universities mostly use it in education. Also preferred by learners for practical reasons.
4. Ancient books are all converted to simplified spellings, including works in Classical Chinese. How often do you need to read ancient books?
5. Japanese shinjitai is also relatively new but the battle shinjitai vs kyūjitai (pre-reform spellings) is almost over. The simplification process wasn't agreed on with communities outside China, so the resistance is still big and anti-simplification propaganda affects some people. It shouldn't be politicised and there's no need to link simplified Chinese with communism. It has happened, compare with 1918 reform of the Russian spelling. Although there are flaws, there are obvious benefits.
6. Simplified Chinese jiantizi is standardized much better than traditional Chinese fantizi. It's fantizi that still has more variants, obscure characters and IME (input methods) are better suited for simplified Chinese.
7. Although traditional Chinese is the original form and links better to Sino-Xenic derivations, it's not always true. Japanese has its own simplification - shinjitai, which matches 30% (I guess) with jiantizi and has its own, Japanese specific forms. Korean and Vietnamese have their variants to some extent and for these languages, Chinese characters are no longer the writing system they use, especially Vietnamese.
8. Most Chinese contributors are from mainland China, the majority of learners, IMHO, focus on simplified Chinese. I wonder how they feel when they find they have to click on the soft redirect links to get the info. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:42, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I wish to stress that I won't object traditional over simplified, if everybody wants so but the choice should be carefully weighed out. Languages and scripts are like currencies, it's not we like but what's more common and practical. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Question: Is there a one-to-many correspondence between traditional and simplified simplified and traditional characters, or is there a many-to-many correspondence? In other words, are there any traditional characters that correspond to more than one simplified character? --WikiTiki89 01:24, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Usually it's a one-to-many correspondence between simplified and traditional characters (in this order). So a conversion from simplified to traditional would be harder but if traditional characters are used as a source for usage examples, etc, then it would still work. It's quite rare but a simplified version should be manually fed into templates, when there are variants. Automatic conversion tools work better (but not 100%) from traditional to simplified. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:38, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

So you're saying there are traditional characters that have more than one simplified character, but very few of them? --WikiTiki89 01:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, there are 19 (?) such traditional characters: 沈, 份, 乾, 畫, 夥, 鹼, 藉, 俱, 瞭, 麼, 彷, 卻, 甚, 么, 於, 餘, 摺, 徵, 著. Most common/notable is probably 著. Wenlin editor always asks how you wish to convert the character to simplified. Don't fully trust Wiktionary on this, single-character entries need a lot of attention. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

The funniest character is 幹, which, when incorrectly translated causes mistranslations, like "dry food" becomes "fuck food". 干 is both simplified and traditional for this sense. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:59, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

That explains some of those Chinese mistranslation memes. Anyway, that means that if we have an automatic conversion from traditional to simplified (whatever it is used for), then it should require a manual conversion whenever those characters are present, right? So I have an idea that would let us have the lemmas at the simplified character entries and still make use of automatic conversion: At simplified character entries, we can group the definitions by traditional equivalents that are indicated in the headwords and include HTML anchors. Then the traditional character entries will link to the correct anchor at the simplified character entries, bringing the reader directly to the definitions he was looking for. --WikiTiki89 02:17, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

With automatic conversion it always requires a knowledge/intervention of an editor, whether you create a simplified or traditional character term, character forms and pinyin. See 台湾 (Taiwan) or its traditional equivalents 臺灣 and 台灣. Or others like 什么. The simplified entry could contain a usage example, where traditional character are used with parameters when a different conversion is required: 這是什麼？／这是什么？  ―  Zhè shì shén么?  ―  What is this?--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:30, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the replies. Answering Panda10's questions:

1. Centralised information on the lemma page will not look crowded - the examples and derived terms will be in collapsed mode. Please see 雨 for an example.
2. Good point. I have changed the order.
3. Categorisation will be added.
4. Personally I think the current format for alternative spellings will be excessive for non-lemma Chinese forms. Pronunciation, definitions, see-also terms will be 100% the same.
5. Currently both are displayed, but envisageably some sort of gadget could be developed for this purpose, using what the Chinese Wikipedia and Wiktionary do.

@Tooironic The new lemma forms would look like 雨 (with all Chinese text in both scripts), and the non-lemma forms would look like User:Wyang/历史 and User:Wyang/语 (or other formats if people prefer).

I entirely agree with CodeCat's reason that Traditional Chinese's long history is a factor not to be overlooked here. It is the reason that Hanyu Da Cidian, the most inclusive Chinese dictionary produced by PRC and in history, uses traditional forms as headwords and most of its citations. The main advantage would be the automation of the trad-simp conversions. Graphical etymologies and descendants would also be heaps easier when done at the traditional forms - see for example 風#Etymology and 學#Etymology.

The choice of script for the title is IMO not a crucial choice, since the title would be the only Chinese text that is not di-scripted on the lemma pages. (The title may even be di-scripted with gadgets.) Soft redirects shouldn't be too much of a problem - since information is not lost. Wyang (talk) 04:33, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

@Wyang Let it be traditional then. Do we need a vote? If you set it up, I'll support it. I'm not sure if {{ping}} works, maybe we need to poll some editors manually. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:24, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

This is Chinese so you need tone marks: {{pīng}}. —CodeCat 13:54, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Is that 俜 (pīng) or 砭? Chuck Entz (talk) 14:15, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

We can bombard those unresponsive with 乒乒乓乓 (pīngpīngpāngpāng). Wyang (talk) 03:13, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks Anatoli. Let's wait for a day or two, and we can start the vote then. Wyang (talk) 13:40, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

We have to work out details of the format (a template) and categorising (more detailed) of jiantizi, perhaps also about interwikis (Wiktionary:Grease_pit/2014/December#Interwiki_bots), since Chinese Wiktionary mainly use jiantizi. It's a big job, hopefully it can automated and simplified characters are not disadvantaged in usage examples, synonyms, etc. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:47, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, any suggestions for the template and the categorisation? Wyang (talk) 03:13, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I think categorisation should possibly mirror traditional entries, if that's reasonable and possible (without having to edit the entry manually - done and forgotten). A simplified entry should have a definition line, and (IMHO) a short usage note (standard in PRC, Singapore, Malaysia, etc.). I'll give it a thought. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I added a note and categorisation - Please take a look at User:Wyang/历史 and User:Wyang/热爱. Wyang (talk) 07:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I still find the dark gray template at the simplified entry too different from the current standars. Would it be too complicated to create a template with the below layout? How about adding the Hanzi box? Another topic: As the language develops over time, is there a chance that the simplified character will get a new meaning that the traditional character will not have?

==Chinese==

===Noun===
'''历史'''

# ''simplified form of'' '''[[歷史]]'''

====Usage notes====
* '''[[Simplified Chinese]]''' is mainly used in Mainland China and Singapore.
* '''[[Traditional Chinese]]''' is mainly used in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

--Panda10 (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

My preference would be to have minimal information on the non-lemma pages, i.e. link only. Definitions and other details (including parts of speech and hanzi box) are covered at the main entry, for clarity and ease of maintenance (e.g. 保险). Answer to the second question: No, they are strictly two versions of the same thing. Wyang (talk) 02:25, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Support I support this proposal. I was worried about categorisation but I read above that it will be handled. For the conflict between simplified and traditionnal, is it possible to have a template on the non-lemma page which will parse the lemma page, extract the parts corresponding to the non-lemma word, convert it to the non-lemma script and display it? This way, the lemma and non-lemma page will display the same information. Meihouwang (talk) 15:00, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

(I'm not a Chinese-speaker, but) I support this proposal. Compare how Swiss spellings like Strasse are soft-redirected. - -sche (discuss) 18:39, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

We can use an existing L3 header, which is legal! - ===Hanzi=== and probably not just for simplified but ALL Chinese entries, Wyang, you may get away with the ===Definitions=== idea after all but using ===Hanzi=== instead. Chinese may not need PoS headers:

==Chinese==

===Hanzi===
# ''simplified form of'' '''[[歷史]]'''

...notes follow

An entry where simplified is also traditional for some senses could use a normal format. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:42, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

• ===Hanzi=== was only for single-character entries, no? Much like the ===Kanji=== header used in Japanese single-character entries? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:02, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that was the original intention but hanzi (and kanji) are invariable nouns. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

• Sorry, I don't understand your comment. I think you mean that the singular and plural forms are identical, which is fine, but also irrelevant to my intended point.

To expand upon my earlier question, if ===Hanzi=== has been used primarily in single-character entries as a header indicating information about that specific character that does not belong under any of the other headers (such as character composition, Unicode chart links, historical development), then the sample use above (in a multi-character entry, and not as a header indicating info about these characters, but rather as a generic non-POS header) strikes me as misleading and potentially confusing. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 07:11, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The information (non-lexical) you're referring it is stored under ==Translingual== L2 header, not under ===Hanzi=== L3 header, everything lexical related to single or multiple character terms is the same - it's lexical, transliterations and pronunciations in the new format are under ===Pronunciation===. Unlike Japanese (also Korean, Vietnamese) - hanzi is the only writing system for standard Chinese, so whether it's a single character (even a component) or a long word, they can all be handled under one header. Rather than using ===Definitions=== (there is no agreement on this heading and an administrator may potentially removed it), I suggest using ===Hanzi=== (which is legal) or we need to promote ===Definitions=== and make it legal. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:34, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm neutral on the choice of header, if any. My feeling is that this general format gives too little emphasis on the actual link, in that it does not specifically inform readers of where to find definitions and other content instead. I'm quite sure that people might start complaining about "no definition, no pronunciation" in Wiktionary:Feedback, since the redirect appears no different from a normal link and is not conspicuous enough. Wyang (talk) 20:23, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

You can add the information after the 'simplified form of 歷史' - in the same line - as you planned in the original gray box. --Panda10 (talk) 21:05, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

First things first. We need descriptive templates for links to traditional and usage notes templates, which can mention that all the info is in the traditional form entry. It's better to split them into two. Simplified characters may be also traditional for some senses or alternative forms, like 台 or 干. "Hanzi" header may be used for both traditional and simplified entries. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:05, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

How about this? Wyang (talk) 07:56, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, it looks good BUT it may not pass the requirements on WT:ELE#Definitions and someone may complain and we'll have to redo as it was with Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2013-03/Japanese Romaji romanization - format and content and Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2013-03/Romanization and definition line. Maybe the links should have an L3 header (not generated by a template), e.g. ===Hanzi===? The problem with ===Definitions=== header is that it has not been approved yet, so a change may not be supported because a new header is introduced, not because of the change itself. Not sure about colours either, maybe no colours should be present in the redirect, just text. I'm just thinking of things that can possibly cause problems. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 11:42, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Since I am not an editor of Chinese, my apologies for my questions. But when I click on the traditional link in the redirect box, where is it supposed to jump to? To the translingual entry? Or to the Mandarin entry? Currently, it just goes to the top of the page.

Do you need the collapse function for the 2-line simplified/traditional usage note? Could they be centralized? For example: placed into their own box on the right, only once for the entire entry. Or no box, just simple text in small font, right under the Chinese L2 header, before any of the L3 headers start. It's a central note, valid for all ety's.

I agree with Anatoli that the colors may not be necessary in the redirect, just the text, although I understand that the color would highlight the fact that this is a redirect, not just a usual ety. For the text itself, there could be several variations, depending on which part should be first and which second. Just reducing the number of double quotes might help to simplify the look. Two possible examples:

Etymology 1

See 乾 ('dry') for pronunciation and definitions of 干. (干 is the simplified form of 乾.)

OR

Etymology 1

干 is the simplified form of 乾. See 乾 ('dry') for pronunciation and definitions.

--Panda10 (talk) 18:06, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both for suggestions. My understanding is that Wiktionary:ELE serves as a format guide for normal entries (The first sentence on the page says "While the information below may represent some kind of “standard” form, it is not a set of rigid rules."). Wiktionary lacks policy or even precedents of soft-redirects, for situations where a multi-scripted language consistently redirects forms written in one script to the forms written in the other script. This is of a completely different nature to the "non-lemma forms" commonly mentioned before, which were mostly stylish (naivety), compounding (sockpuppet), historical (anæmia) and erroneous (accomodation) variants, with very few being actual regional variants (compare the non-redirection of colour/color). As a consequence, there is no properly designed layout for this new category of soft-redirects, and existing layout fails to give due emphasis to the link to information, misleading readers to think that the form is an uncommon (and unimportant) alternative variant. In the case of 干, the inconspicuity of the redirections does not create the impression that two thirds of the definitions of the character should actually be found at the respective lemma forms.

Answering Panda10: The link to traditional links to the Chinese section, if it exists. The merger of Chinese variants is ongoing. The box will only show the notes if the variant type is "simplified". It could also be "ancient", "obsolete" or "variant", in which case the notes would not be appropriate. Characters like 干 are very rare - most will have only one note displayed, thus having notes underneath the link might be more explanatory. Wyang (talk) 00:09, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The closest thing we have for a single-language full-entry soft redirect is {{no entry}}. —CodeCat 19:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I would say {{pinyin reading of}} or {{ja-romaji}} are close equivalents to soft redirects. I personally don't have strong objections to Wyang's suggested format but I'm almost sure, there will be strong opposition to the new format, once we start changing entries. The votes, discussions on Japanese romaji entry format is a good example of that, despite the seeming triviality of romanisation entries. Specifically, the definition line (starting with #, not generated by a template), a PoS header (including "Definitions" or "Hanzi") should be sorted first - need to get some kind of legitimacy. The topic is mostly ignored now by people, who will surely raise their voice later. I don't want to create obstacles, I fully support the change (despite my preference for simplified) but I'm worried about time and efforts that could be spent. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

If KassadBot (or similar) is restarted, it will flag these entries as incorrectly formatted. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:53, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

{{pinyin reading of}} and {{ja-romaji}} are not for native scripts, whereas these redirects will be for native scripted forms and therefore need to be more eye-catching. IMO the first step is to make sure the introduction of lemma forms is agreed upon, and further changes to formats can be discussed once the first is established. A vote shouldn't be necessary if there is overwhelming support from related editors - and it seems from the discussion above that we can presume that step 1 is accepted by most, if not all. Wyang (talk) 09:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I know they are not for native scripts but the lack of "#" on a definition line on romaji entries caused quite a stir (even if it was generated by a template). The new format examples introduces Definitions header as well (when simp./trad. is shared in some cases), for which we still have opposition. I've made some 字 entries with this header, anyway. I think you can proceed. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Demoting kyūjitai to stubs/soft-redirects

Somewhat similar to the discussion just above and Wiktionary:Tea_room/2014/December#社会 and 社會, I suggest to make some changes to Japanese entries, which are kyūjitai and is not current use (some kind of exceptions can be made for kyūjitai, which are still in use, perhaps. Even the format of 社會 is too much, IMHO. It shouldn't contain translations, romanisation, etc, just a one-line link to lemma - 社会. I have no exact format at the moment, just wish to mention and get opinions. Calling @Eirikr, TAKASUGI_Shinji, Haplology, Whym (please add anyone I missed). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:50, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree. We use {{archaic spelling of}} for English. Why not for Japanese? — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 23:46, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that a one-line link would be sufficient for them. As for the wording, I would prefer saying something like "archaic" (as in the template Takasugi-san suggests) or "rarely used", than "not in current use". At least some words in kyūjitai such as (deprecated template usage) , (deprecated template usage) appear to me more like archaic than obsolete (in the sense that most people, if not all, can understand). This is perhaps because I keep seeing some institutions and people using those forms as part of their names. Whym (talk) 00:19, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

I also agree, and I think {{archaic spelling of}} sounds like a great idea. Many (most?) of these spellings aren't strictly obsolete, as Whym notes, and do get used intentionally from time to time. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 00:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

{{archaic spelling of}} is not the best solution, IMO, as there are archaic spellings, which are not kyūjitai. Kyūjitai merits a separate template, with categorisations. I also support removing all additional infos, definitions, examples to avoid duplications. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

PoS filtering at OneLook

Here is a description of the new capability added to OneLook. It already had wildcard searches which allowed searches for words ending in "full" (which we don't as "full" is not a suffix and {{compound}} does not categorize). DCDuring TALK 17:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Using templates to synchronize US-UK spelling

FYI: Wiktionary:Grease pit/2014/December#Revisiting the issue of English UK/US spellings and entry synchroni(s.7Cz)ation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Esperanto participles - markup in headword lines

FYI, an editor currently mass replaces "{{head|eo|participle}}" with the likes of "{{eo-part|alĝustig|ite}}", as in diff. I don't know the benefit of such a replacement; if you are an Esperanto editor (User:Mr. Granger?), you might want to have a look and see whether the change seems good to you. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:03, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

{{eo-part|alĝustig|ite}} puts the term into Category:Esperanto adverbial participles, while {{head|eo|participle}} puts it into Category:Esperanto participles, so it's more specific. {{head|eo|adverbial participle}} would have the same effect, but by using {{eo-part}}, editors don't have to remember which kind of participle is associated with which suffix, as the template does the work for them. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:14, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Is the goal to have Category:Esperanto participles empty, having all participles classified in one of Category:Esperanto adjectival participles‎, Category:Esperanto adverbial participles‎ and Category:Esperanto nominal participles‎? --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:43, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like a reasonable goal to me—every participal is either adjectival, adverbial, or nominal, so it's certainly possible to move all of them to the subcategories, and maybe that would be useful in some way. There's no need for User:Embryomystic to do it by hand, though—it could easily be done by bot. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 14:12, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. Send in the bots. embryomystic (talk) 23:33, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Mass or indiscriminate adding of RFE - requests for etymology

I noticed a user is mass additing RFE tags to Estonian entries; not using a bot but in considerable volumes anyway. My opposition to these requests tags is probably known; I still oppose this practice. If there are other people who like me think that the tags are pointless especially when being added indiscriminately, maybe we could do something to prevent the continuation of addition of these tags. For reference: Category:Estonian entries needing etymology, Recent changes in that category. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:10, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that these entries do not need etymology? —CodeCat 15:43, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

All entries ought to have etymology ultimately, but the absence of an ety section already indicates that it is missing. RFE should be reserved for words that a user has a particularly keen interest in; otherwise we might just as well auto-add it to every entry, which is unhelpful for readers. Equinox ◑ 16:15, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

My experience is that a notice makes people more likely to add information. It has helped with inflections for example. Furthermore, the category is a to-do list, as it shows all entries that still lack an etymology. Keen interest is irrelevant; for every entry where a user adds a request template to indicate an interest, there are ten more where the user has simply left, disappointed, without adding a notice. —CodeCat 16:21, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

We also (judging from the feedback page) have users who leave disappointed because they literally can't find the definition among all the tables of contents and large ety and pron sections! Equinox ◑ 16:32, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Tabbed Languages, people. — Keφr 16:34, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

{{rfelite}} is less intrusive than {{rfe}}. DCDuring TALK 17:01, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

rfelite still requires an etymology section heading for what is not content, just a request. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

But we're talking about a category that would contain millions of entries- entries which require individual attention by human beings with knowledge on how to do etymologies. It would never be cleared in your lifetime or mine- what kind of a motivator is that? Chuck Entz (talk) 22:43, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

The category name is misleading. Recently, the category name was Category:Requests for etymology (Estonian). The renaming happened via Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits#Category:English definitions needed to Category:English entries needing definition discussion in August 2014 with very little participation; the only boldfaced support there was by Wikitiki. Now as before, I think Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits should either be discontinued or limited to pages in the main namespace, since it is a positively harmful process.

I have seen no evidence that these RFE tags make people more likely to add etymologies, and I don't believe that to be the case. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:03, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI: Wiktionary:Votes/2014-12/Adding RFEs to all lemma entries where etymology is missing. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:07, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you may be right after all. If there are votes for every little issue you have, people will start to ignore those, too. I know I will. —CodeCat 17:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not a little issue. It's a deviation from a previous practice. Up to now, we did not try to use RFE (which is still named a "request") to cover all missing etymologies; even right now, it is not our practice. Fact is, you are not very good at creating votes that result in support for your changes. Of the top of my head I don't remember any, but there probably is at least one such vote. One of your recent proposals has a vote which does not show consensus for your change: Wiktionary:Votes/2014-08/Migrating from Template:term to Template:m. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:30, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

In my experience, a limited number of requests (of any type) is necessary and most editors and some users do this but when they are too many, it's demotivating (an exception is, obviously when there are known editors who do this on a regular basis or there is a previous agreement). I dislike when people add translation requests to any entry they edit, especially when it is a request of a non-trivial term and into a language we have few contributors for. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:47, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Template:attributive of under Adjective PoS

A significant number of the 675 uses of {{attributive of}} appear under the Adjective PoS header. The overwhelming majority of these are not adjectives, as the use of the template suggests and as tests for adjectivity would likely show.

1. Do we want to keep these inane entries and add more to preempt the creation of shoddy, inane Adjective PoS sections by well-meaning contributors?
2. Do we want to clean them out by RfV to test the validity of their adjectivity?
3. Do we want to allow contributors to delete all of them that are not attested and do not have any other definition that might warrant inclusion?

Neither option 1 nor option 3 are in accord with CFI, but that may be more a suggestion than a policy anyway. DCDuring TALK 23:07, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

There can be no mass deletion. We can rfv them or rfd them all separately. Or change the header and templates to noun. That's the only one that can be done en masse. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:22, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

There usually already is a Noun PoS. So you think it would be OK to move the offending sense line to the existing Noun header?

Are you at all concerned about the likely re-creation of an Adjective PoS section after the changing-to or merging-into the Noun PoS header? DCDuring TALK 23:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Translations of non-lemma forms (see newest)

Do we allow translations for English non-lemma forms? See newest. --Panda10 (talk) 15:16, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Why would we not? bd2412 T 16:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC).

Would a superlative form be considered an "inflected form"? According to Wiktionary:Entry_layout_explained#Translations: "English inflected forms will not have translations. For example, paints will not, as it is the plural and third-person singular of paint. In such entries as have additional meanings, these additional meanings should have translations. For example, the noun building should have translations, but the present participle of build will not." --Panda10 (talk) 16:42, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, a superlative is considered an inflected form. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:47, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Not in all languages. Latin comparatives and superlatives are considered lemmas in Wiktionary. And in many other languages such as Slovene and Finnish, the comparative and superlative are what you might call a "half-lemma": they have a non-lemma definition, but they also have their own inflection table like a lemma. Participles are treated similarly in many languages. —CodeCat 19:40, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Latin novissimus is in Category:Latin non-lemma forms, not in Category:Latin lemmas. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

But compare Category:Latin superlative adjectives. —CodeCat 21:13, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Because we presumably list the translation at the lemma form, and inflected forms of the foreign word at the foreign-language entry. If you want to know how to say "newest" in Hungarian or Polish, you go to [[new#Translations]], find the Hungarian or Polish word, go to that entry, and see what the superlative of it is. I'd be opposed to listing translations of nonlemma forms, because of the sheer quantity of translations that could theoretically be added, especially for verb forms. I don't relish the idea of seeing an entire translation table of third-person singular forms at [[walks]] and two entire translation tables (one for the past tense and one for the past participle) at [[walked]]; especially not for languages where those forms are not distinct from that language's lemma form in the first place, meaning the entries for those languages would be redundant to the entries at [[walk]]. We'd never be able to keep them coordinated with the translations tables at the lemma form, which is why we already use {{trans-see}} for near-perfect synonyms, alternative spellings, and the like. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:47, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  What Angr said. DCDuring TALK 16:53, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  It seems to me that it would make it much easier for the reader if they could look up the translation by going to the exact word for which it is a translation. This would be doubly useful for words for which the lemma might have a dozen different meanings, but a particular inflection only occurs for one of those meanings. bd2412 T 17:26, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  Let me introduce a radical consideration: resources, ie, contributors. Is this what we would like to either do ourselves, offer to new contributors as a task, or attempt to automate? DCDuring TALK 19:28, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  There are eleven translation tables at [[new]], some with dozens of languages in them. Are we to repeat all of those translations at [[newest]], but using the superlative form, even for languages where the superlative is formed fully regularly, even periphrastically (e.g. le plus nouveau with each word linked separately)? And when someone comes along to [[new]] and adds a new language, say Marathi, to the translations, who's going to go to [[newest]] and add the superlative there? And many languages have multiple past tenses, while English only has one, not to mention multiple persons and numbers; should the French translation for [[walked]] list all of the following: marchais, marchait, marchions, marchiez, marchaient, marchai, marchas, marcha, marchâmes, marchâtes, marchèrent, ai marché, as marché, a marché, avons marché, avez marché, ont marché? And then the same thing for all of the polysemous verbs that have more than one French translation; shall we list all 17 forms for each verb that can be used to translate the English word? Lower Sorbian has at least four verbs that mean "go", two past tenses, three persons, and three numbers; should the translation table for [[went]] really list all 72 forms? I don't think that's going to make things any easier for the reader than simply going to [[go]], finding the Lower Sorbian lemmas, and then finding the appropriate inflected form on the Lower Sorbian lemma page. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  No one is proposing such a thing any more than they are proposing that "newest" should have eleven senses reflecting the senses at "new" (some of which seem redundant to me, like sense 12 merely being a special case of sense 3). As for conjugations, we can find other ways to deal with those. I am merely proposing that we should give the reader the shortest path to finding what they want. If contributors don't want to add such information, then it won't get added, but that doesn't mean it should be prohibited. We might as well say that etymologies or pronunciations of non-English terms should be prohibited because including them is too daunting a task for contributors to engage in. bd2412 T 21:17, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  But indirectly that is what's being proposed, because if we remove the prohibition on inflected forms having translations from WT:ELE, there's nothing to stop someone from adding 72 Lower Sorbian forms in a translation table at [[went]]. And that would not help anyone, not even someone trying to figure out how to say "I went to Cottbus" in Lower Sorbian. Basically, I think it's an illusion that listing the translations for inflected forms will help the reader. It seems at first blush like it will, but in actual practice it won't. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:44, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  Can we draw a distinction between inflected verbs and inflected adjectives? Are we going to find 72 Lower Sorbian forms of "newest"? bd2412 T 22:22, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  We can, but the original question was about English non-lemma forms in general, not English adjective forms specifically. There will only be 15 distinct Lower Sorbian forms of "newest". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  A tricky topic. The superlative form [[newest]]] can have a lemma form as well in the Slavic languages - masculine, singular, nominative case, e.g. in Russian it's нове́йший (novéjšij) or са́мый но́вый (sámyj nóvyj), other genders, plural, cases should not be in the translation, if they are added. If I were to translate the past tense form [[went]] into Russian, then I would use masculine singular - шёл impf (šol), пошёл pf (pošól) - concrete of идти́ (idtí), ходи́л impf (xodíl), походи́л pf (poxodíl) - abstract of ходи́ть (xodítʹ) (verbs of movement can have concrete and abstract versions in Slavic languages). Plus, there are equivalent verbs to go by a vehicle (perfective, imperfective, concrete, abstract), so there could be, at least eight translation into Russian. See go#Translations, e.g. translations into Russian. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:36, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

To answer the question, no, it was formally disallowed by a vote. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:11, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Did the vote explicitly define whether comparatives and superlatives are considered inflected forms? I would say they are, but there doesn't seem to be unanimity on that issue. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-02/Disallowing translations for English inflected forms did not mention comparatives and superlatives. --Panda10 (talk) 14:57, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

In that case, what we need to decide is whether comparatives and superlatives are considered inflected forms in the sense of that vote or not. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I wrote that vote, and they are. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

For the purposes of translations (and I think most others), I think they should be. Apart from "logistic" issues (i.e. keeping the lists in synch) and redundancy (you can already translate the ungraded form and look up the graded form in the target language's entry), different languages may handle gradation differently (e.g. elative form in Arabic, or several "workaround" constructs for Japanese, which has no proper adjectives to begin with), so often there will not be a good match in the target language. — Keφr 18:24, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionaries word of the year 2014

[3]: They chose vape (we had it in 2012) and runners-up bae (we had it in 2014), budtender (2012), contactless (2008), indyref (we don't have it), normcore (2014), slacktivism (2006). Equinox ◑ 23:55, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Excellent, but we shouldn't dislocate our shoulder patting ourselves on the back. DCDuring TALK 00:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• indyref added December 2014 - not sure if it will have a lasting usage. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

  indyref is a word? I thought it was a hashtag. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:23, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

  • A Google News search turns up some reputable media outlets that appear to be using it as a word, though mostly as shorthand in headlines. bd2412 T 18:42, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Request for Permissions

I would like to request to be able to delete pages and move pages without a redirect, please. Anglom (talk) 18:38, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• That would make you an administrator, as those are the only editors able to do so. Based on your length and duration of activity here, I would support you in an adminship bid if you make one. bd2412 T 18:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• @Anglom: Who are you? I do not recall you from the dramaboards. — Keφr 18:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@T Ah, I didn't realize. Thank you. An adminship is probably more responsibility than I'm willing to take on right now, but how might I go about that in the future? By requesting here?

@Keφr I'm sorry, I don't much make it over to discussion pages. Anglom (talk) 19:16, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

@Kephir I know Anglom from his work on Germanic languages. He's a good and conscientious editor who largely stays away from drama. If this were Wikipedia, his almost complete avoidance of the project namespace would be problematic, but here at Wiktionary I don't think it is. @Anglom, being an admin doesn't actually give you more responsibilities unless you want them. You're not obligated to go vandal hunting, or block people, or protect pages, or anything like that. I'd support you for adminship too. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:09, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I offer conditional support. Anglom needs to put up a Babel box, be emailable, and, most importantly, provide etymology and gender for Alle. DCDuring TALK 21:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The gender is hard to find, I assumed it would be a neuter third declension i-stem, but going by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature "30.2.3. If no gender was specified, the name takes the gender indicated by its combination with one or more adjectival species-group names of the originally included nominal species", I would have to say feminine based on Alca, yes? Anglom (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for humoring me and for your diligence. I was hoping that there was an answer from the apparent language of origin. DCDuring TALK 01:12, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hold on, DCDuring. You already created the vote, but I have not yet seen Anglom say that he wants to be an admin. --WikiTiki89 03:17, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

He said he would accept the nomination. DCDuring TALK 03:19, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't notice that you asked him on his talk page. --WikiTiki89 03:21, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of rfv-passed and the like

FYI, there is a proposal to delete {{rfv-passed}}, {{rfd-passed}} and the like and to replace it with a longer markup. It is here: Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Others#Archive_templates. I oppose the proposal. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, and don't make the markup longer. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)